Thursday, August 10, 2017

In a report published Thursday, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School said the immigration plan, dubbed the RAISE Act, would result in 4.6 million lost jobs by the year 2040. It also found that the U.S. economy would be 2% smaller than it would be under the current immigration policy during that time.

Last week, Trump threw his support behind the RAISE Act, a bill crafted by Republican Senators David Perdue and Tom Cotton. The proposal seeks to cut legal immigration to the U.S. by 50% within a decade.

"If you have fewer workers, we will have less economic growth," said Kimberly Burham, a managing director at the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan research team at UPenn.

Related: Trump immigration policy poses risk to job market
Economists say the U.S. economy depends on foreign workers to grow the labor force and maintain growth. Since 2000, Baby Boomers have been retiring at a much faster pace than the U.S. job market has been growing, according to data from the Atlanta Federal Reserve and Labor Department.

There were 27 million foreign-born workers in the United States last year, government figures show.

"Immigrants, especially new immigrants, are highly productive and if we decrease that number, that will harm economic growth in the short and long run," said Burham.

The White House has not yet responded to CNNMoney's request for comment on the study.